In the late Roman period, as the empire came under pressure from many such "barbarian" peoples, a powerful group of Burgundians and other Vandalic tribes moved westwards towards the Roman frontiers along the Rhine Valley, making them neighbors of the Franks who formed their kingdoms to the north, and the SuebicAlemanni who were settling to their south, also near the Rhine. They established themselves in Worms, but with Roman cooperation their descendants eventually established the Kingdom of the Burgundians much further south, and within the empire, in the western Alps region where modern Switzerland, France and Italy meet. This later became a component of the Frankish empire. The name of this kingdom survives in the regional appellation, Burgundy, which is a region in modern France, representing only a part of that kingdom.

Another part of the Burgundians stayed in their previous homeland in the Oder-Vistula basin and formed a contingent in Attila's Hunnic army by 451.[1][2]

Before clear documentary evidence begins, the Burgundians may have originally emigrated from mainland Scandinavia to the Baltic island of Bornholm, and from there to the Vistula basin, in the middle of what is now Poland.[3]

The ethnonym Burgundians is commonly used in English to refer to the Burgundi (Burgundionei, Burgundiones or Burgunds) who settled in Sapaudia (Savoy), in the western Alps, during the 5th century. The original Kingdom of the Burgundians barely intersected the modern Bourgogne and more closely matched the boundaries of the Arpitan or Romand (Franco-Provençal) language area,[4] centred on the Rôno-Arpes (Rhône-Alpes) region of France, Romandy in west Switzerland andVal d'Outa (Val d'Aosta), in north west Italy.

In modern usage, however, "Burgundians" can sometimes refer to later inhabitants of the geographical Bourgogne or Borgogne (Burgundy), named after the old kingdom, but not corresponding to the original boundaries of it. Between the 6th and 20th centuries, the boundaries and political connections of "Burgundy" have changed frequently. In modern times the only area still referred to as Burgundy is in France, which derives its name from the Duchy of Burgundy. But in the context of the middle ages the term Burgundian (or similar spellings) can refer even to the powerful political entity the Dukes controlled which included not only Burgundy itself but had actually expanded to have a strong association with areas now in modern Belgium and Southern Netherlands. The parts of the old Kingdom not within the French controlled Duchy tended to come under different names, except for the County of Burgundy.

The Burgundians had a tradition of Scandinavian origin which finds support in place-name evidence and archaeological evidence (Stjerna) and many consider their tradition to be correct (e.g. Musset, p. 62). The Burgundians are believed to have then emigrated to the Baltic island of Bornholm ("the island of the Burgundians" in Old Norse). However, by about 250 AD, the population of Bornholm had largely disappeared from the island. Most cemeteries ceased to be used, and those that were still used had few burials (Stjerna, in Nerman 1925:176). In Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar (The Saga of Thorstein, Viking's Son), a man (or group) named Veseti settled on a holm (island) called borgundarhólmr in Old Norse, i.e. Bornholm. Alfred the Great's translation of Orosius uses the name Burgenda land to refer to a territory next to the land of Sweons ("Swedes").[5] The poet and early mythologist Viktor Rydberg (1828–1895), (Our Fathers' Godsaga) asserted from an early medieval source, Vita Sigismundi, that they themselves retained oral traditions about their Scandinavian origin.

Early Roman sources, such as Tacitus and Pliny the Elder, knew little concerning the Germanic peoples east of the Elbe river, or on the Baltic Sea. Pliny (IV.28) however mentions them among the Vandalic or Eastern Germanic Germani peoples, including also the Goths. Claudius Ptolemy lists them as living between the Suevus (probably the Oder) and Vistula rivers, north of the Lugii, and south of the coast dwelling tribes. Around the mid 2nd century AD, there was a significant migration by Germanic tribes of Scandinavian origin (Rugii, Goths, Gepidae, Vandals, Burgundians, and others)[6] towards the south-east, creating turmoil along the entire Roman frontier.[6][7][8][9] These migrations culminated in the Marcomannic Wars, which resulted in widespread destruction and the first invasion of Italy in the Roman Empire period.[9]Jordanes reports that during the 3rd century, the Burgundians living in the Vistula basin were almost annihilated by Fastida, king of the Gepids, whose kingdom was at the mouth of the Vistula.

In the late 3rd century, the Burgundians appear on the east bank of the Rhine, confronting Roman Gaul. Zosimus (1.68) reports them being defeated by the emperor Probus in 278 in Gaul. At this time, they were led by a Vandal king. A few years later, Claudius Mamertinus mentions them along with the Alamanni, a Suebic people. These two peoples had moved into the Agri Decumates on the eastern side of the Rhine, an area today referred to still as Swabia, at times attacking Roman Gaul together and sometimes fighting each other. He also mentions that the Goths had previously defeated the Burgundians.

Ammianus Marcellinus, on the other hand, claimed that the Burgundians were descended from Romans. The Roman sources do not speak of any specific migration from Poland by the Burgundians (although other Vandalic peoples are more clearly mentioned as having moved west in this period), and so there have historically been some doubts about the link between the eastern and western Burgundians.[10]

In 369/370, the Emperor Valentinian I enlisted the aid of the Burgundians in his war against the Alemanni.

Approximately four decades later, the Burgundians appear again. Following Stilicho's withdrawal of troops to fight Alaric I the Visigoth in AD 406-408, a large group of peoples from central Europe north of the Danube, came west and crossed the Rhine, entering the Empire, near the lands of the Burgundians who had moved much earlier. The dominant groups were Alans, Vandals (Hasdingi and Silingi), and Danubian Suevi (probably descended from Marcomanni and Quadi). The majority of these Danubian peoples moved through Gaul and eventually established themselves in kingdoms in Roman Hispania. One group of Alans was settled in northern Gaul by the Romans.

In 411, the Burgundian king Gundahar (or Gundicar) set up a puppet emperor, Jovinus, in cooperation with Goar, king of the Alans. With the authority of the Gallic emperor that he controlled, Gundahar settled on the left (Roman) bank of the Rhine, between the river Lauter and the Nahe, seizing Worms, Speyer, and Strassburg. Apparently as part of a truce, the Emperor Honorius later officially "granted" them the land,[11] with its capital at the old Celtic Roman settlement of Borbetomagus (present Worms).

Despite their new status as foederati, Burgundian raids into Roman Upper Gallia Belgica became intolerable and were ruthlessly brought to an end in 436, when the Roman general Aëtius called in Hun mercenaries, who overwhelmed the Rhineland kingdom in 437. Gundahar was killed in the fighting, reportedly along with the majority of the Burgundian tribe.[12]

The destruction of Worms and the Burgundian kingdom by the Huns became the subject of heroic legends that were afterwards incorporated in the Nibelungenlied—on which Wagner based his Ring Cycle—where King Gunther (Gundahar) and Queen Brünhild hold their court at Worms, and Siegfried comes to woo Kriemhild. (In Old Norse sources the names are Gunnar, Brynhild, and Gudrún as normally rendered in English.) In fact, the Etzel of the Nibelungenlied is based on Attila the Hun.

For reasons not cited in the sources, the Burgundians were granted foederati status a second time, and in 443 were resettled by Aëtius in the region of Sapaudia.[13] Though the precise geography is uncertain, Sapaudia corresponds to the modern-day Savoy, and the Burgundians probably lived near Lugdunum, known today as Lyon.[14] A new king, Gundioc or Gunderic, presumed to be Gundahar's son, appears to have reigned following his father's death.[15] The historian Pline[citation needed] tells us that Gonderic ruled the areas of Saône, Dauphiny, Savoie and a part of Provence. He set up Vienne as the capital of the kingdom of Burgundy. In all, eight Burgundian kings of the house of Gundahar ruled until the kingdom was overrun by the Franks in 534.

As allies of Rome in its last decades, the Burgundians fought alongside Aëtius and a confederation of Visigoths and others in the battle against Attila at the Battle of Châlons (also called "The Battle of the Catalaunian Fields") in 451. The alliance between Burgundians and Visigoths seems to have been strong, as Gundioc and his brother Chilperic I accompanied Theodoric II to Spain to fight the Sueves in 455.[16]

Also in 455, an ambiguous reference infidoque tibi Burdundio ductu[17] implicates an unnamed treacherous Burgundian leader in the murder of the emperor Petronius Maximus in the chaos preceding the sack of Rome by the Vandals. The Patrician Ricimer is also blamed; this event marks the first indication of the link between the Burgundians and Ricimer, who was probably Gundioc's brother-in-law and Gundobad's uncle.[18]

In 456, the Burgundians, apparently confident in their growing power, negotiated a territorial expansion and power sharing arrangement with the local Roman senators.[19]

In 457, Ricimer overthrew another emperor, Avitus, raising Majorian to the throne. This new emperor proved unhelpful to Ricimer and the Burgundians. The year after his ascension, Majorian stripped the Burgundians of the lands they had acquired two years earlier. After showing further signs of independence, he was murdered by Ricimer in 461.

Ten years later, in 472, Ricimer–who was by now the son-in-law of the Western Emperor Anthemius–was plotting with Gundobad to kill his father-in-law; Gundobad beheaded the emperor (apparently personally).[20] Ricimer then appointed Olybrius; both died, surprisingly of natural causes, within a few months. Gundobad seems then to have succeeded his uncle as Patrician and king-maker, and raised Glycerius to the throne.[21]

In 474, Burgundian influence over the empire seems to have ended. Glycerius was deposed in favor of Julius Nepos, and Gundobad returned to Burgundy, presumably at the death of his father Gundioc. At this time or shortly afterwards, the Burgundian kingdom was divided among Gundobad and his brothers, Godigisel, Chilperic II, and Gundomar I.[22]

According to Gregory of Tours, the years following Gundobad's return to Burgundy saw a bloody consolidation of power. Gregory states that Gundobad murdered his brother Chilperic, drowning his wife and exiling their daughters (one of whom was to become the wife of Clovis the Frank, and was reputedly responsible for his conversion).[23] This is contested by, e.g., Bury, who points out problems in much of Gregory's chronology for the events.

In c. 500, when Gundobad and Clovis were at war, Gundobad appears to have been betrayed by his brother Godegisel, who joined the Franks; together Godegisel's and Clovis' forces "crushed the army of Gundobad".[24] Gundobad was temporarily holed up in Avignon, but was able to re-muster his army and sacked Vienne, where Godegisel and many of his followers were put to death. From this point, Gundobad appears to have been the sole king of Burgundy.[25] This would imply that his brother Gundomar was already dead, though there are no specific mentions of the event in the sources.

Either Gundobad and Clovis reconciled their differences, or Gundobad was forced into some sort of vassalage by Clovis' earlier victory, as the Burgundian king appears to have assisted the Franks in 507 in their victory over Alaric II the Visigoth.

During the upheaval, sometime between 483–501, Gundobad began to set forth the Lex Gundobada (see below), issuing roughly the first half, which drew upon the Lex Visigothorum.[26] Following his consolidation of power, between 501 and his death in 516, Gundobad issued the second half of his law, which was more originally Burgundian.

The Burgundians were extending their power over southeastern Gaul--that is, northern Italy, western Switzerland, and southeastern France. In 493, Clovis, king of the Franks, married the Burgundian princess Clotilda (daughter of Chilperic), who converted him to the Catholic faith.

At first allied with Clovis'Franks against the Visigoths in the early 6th century, the Burgundians were eventually conquered at Autun by the Franks in 532 after a first attempt in the Battle of Vézeronce. The Burgundian kingdom was made part of the Merovingian kingdoms, and the Burgundians themselves were by and large absorbed as well.

The 5th century Gallo-Romanpoet and landownerSidonius, who at one point lived with the Burgundians, described them as a long-haired people of immense physical size:

"Why... do you [an obscure senator by the name of Catullinus] bid me compose a song dedicated to Venus... placed as I am among long-haired hordes, having to endure Germanic speech, praising often with a wry face the song of the gluttonous Burgundian who spreads rancid butter on his hair? ... You don't have a reek of garlic and foul onions discharged upon you at early morn from ten breakfasts, and you are not invaded before dawn... by a crowd of giants."[27]

Little is known of the language. Some proper names of Burgundians are recorded, and some words used in the area in modern times are thought to be derived from the ancient Burgundian language,[28] but it is often difficult to distinguish these from Germanic words of other origin, and in any case the modern form of the words is rarely suitable to infer much about the form in the old language.

Divisions were evidently healed or healing circa 500, however, as Gundobad, one of the last Burgundian kings, maintained a close personal friendship with Avitus, the bishop of Vienne. Moreover, Gundobad's son and successor, Sigismund, was himself a Catholic, and there is evidence that many of the Burgundian people had converted by this time as well, including several female members of the ruling family.

The Burgundians left three legal codes, among the earliest from any of the Germanic tribes.

The Liber Constitutionum sive Lex Gundobada ("The Book of Constitutions or Law of Gundobad"), also known as the Lex Burgundionum, or more simply the Lex Gundobada or the Liber, was issued in several parts between 483 and 516, principally by Gundobad, but also by his son, Sigismund.[29] It was a record of Burgundian customary law and is typical of the many Germanic law codes from this period. In particular, the Liber borrowed from the Lex Visigothorum[30] and influenced the later Lex Ripuaria.[31] The Liber is one of the primary sources for contemporary Burgundian life, as well as the history of its kings.

Like many of the Germanic tribes, the Burgundians' legal traditions allowed the application of separate laws for separate ethnicities. Thus, in addition to the Lex Gundobada, Gundobad also issued (or codified) a set of laws for Roman subjects of the Burgundian kingdom, the Lex Romana Burgundionum (The Roman Law of the Burgundians).

In addition to the above codes, Gundobad's son Sigismund later published the Prima Constitutio.

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (March 2013)Click [show] for important translation instructions.

Machine translation like Deepl or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.

Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.

You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary (using German): Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Exact name of German article]]; see its history for attribution.

You should also add the template {{Translated|fr|Burgondes}} to the talk page.

^Gregory, II, 28. Gregory's chronology of the events surrounding Clovis and Gundobad has been questioned by Bury, Shanzer, and Wood, among others. Gregory was somewhat of a Frankish apologist, and commonly discredited the enemies of Clovis by attributing to them some fairly shocking acts. As with Godegisel, he also commonly refers to the treachery of Clovis' allies, when in fact Clovis seems to have bought them off (e.g., in the case of the Ripuarians).

5th century

The 5th century is the time period from 400 to 500 Anno Domini (AD) or Common Era (CE) in the Julian calendar. The 5th century is noted for being a period of migration and political instability, throughout Eurasia.

480

Year 480 (CDLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Basilius without colleague. The denomination 480 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

493

Year 493 (CDXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Albinus and Eusebius. The denomination 493 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Clovis I

Clovis was the first king of the Franks to unite all of the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the form of leadership from a group of royal chieftains to rule by a single king and ensuring that the kingship was passed down to his heirs. He is considered to have been the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled the Frankish kingdom for the next two centuries.

Clotilde

Saint Clotilde (c.474–545), also known as Clothilde, Clotilda, Clotild, Rotilde etc., was the second wife of the Frankish king Clovis I, and a princess of the kingdom of Burgundy, supposedly descended from the Gothic king Aþana-reiks. After their marriage in 492, Clotilde and her husband founded the Merovingian dynasty which ruled for over 200 years. Venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church as well as by the Eastern Orthodox, she was instrumental in her husband's famous conversion to Catholicism and, in her later years, was known for her almsgiving and penitential works of mercy. She is credited with spreading Christianity to the western world.

Ricimer

Flavius Ricimer was a Romanized Germanic general who effectively ruled the remaining territory of the Western Roman Empire from 461 until his death in 472, with a brief interlude in which he contested power with Anthemius. Deriving his power from his position as magister militum of the Western Empire, Ricimer exercised political control through a series of puppet emperors.

Gundobad

Gundobad was King of the Burgundians, succeeding his father Gundioc of Burgundy. Previous to this, he had been a Patrician of the Western Roman Empire in 472 – 473, succeeding his uncle Ricimer. He was the husband of Caretene.

Salian Franks

The Salian Franks, also called the Salians, were a northwestern subgroup of the earliest Franks who first appear in the historical records in the third century.

Kingdom of Soissons

In historiography, the Kingdom or Domain of Soissons refers to a rump state of the Western Roman Empire in northern Gaul, between the Somme and the Seine, that lasted for some twenty-five years during Late Antiquity. The rulers of the rump state, notably its final ruler Syagrius, were referred to as "Kings of the Romans" by the Germanic peoples surrounding Soissons, with the polity itself being identified as the Regnum Romanorum, "Kingdom of the Romans", by the Visigothic historian Gregory of Tours. Whether this title was used by Syagrius himself, who claimed to be governing a Roman province and not a state independent from central imperial authority, or was applied to him by the barbarians surrounding his realm in a similar way to how they referred to their own leaders as kings is unknown.

Kingdom of Burgundy

Kingdom of Burgundy was a name given to various states located in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. The historical Burgundy correlates with the border area of France, Italy and Switzerland and includes the major modern cities of Geneva and Lyon.

Lex Burgundionum

The Lex Burgundionum refers to the law code of the Burgundians, probably issued by king Gundobad. It is influenced by Roman law and deals with domestic laws concerning marriage and inheritance as well as regulating weregild and other penalties. Interaction between Burgundians is treated separately from interaction between Burgundians and Gallo-Romans. The oldest of the 14 surviving manuscripts of the text dates to the 9th century, but the code's institution is ascribed to king Gundobad, with a possible revision by his successor Sigismund. The Lex Romana Burgundionum is a separate code, containing various laws taken from Roman sources, probably intended to apply to the Burgundians' Gallo-Roman subjects. The oldest copy of this text dates to the 7th century.

Kingdom of the Burgundians

The Kingdom of the Burgundians or First Kingdom of Burgundy was established by Germanic Burgundians in the Rhineland and then in Savoy in the 5th century.